


to sleep, perchance to dream

by shieldivarius



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Dreams, M/M, Pining, Re:Mind Spoilers, Red String of Fate, Riku has depression hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: When he sleeps, Riku dreams, and sometimes it’s easier than being awake.There's something in his dreams that leads to Sora. It's too bad dreams aren't real (except when they are).
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 118





	to sleep, perchance to dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is set shortly before the Limit Cut episode, in the year-long gap. 
> 
> Title is, of course, from Hamlet.

When he sleeps, Riku dreams, and sometimes it’s easier than being awake.

Kairi is sleeping. Sora is gone. Riku drifts through hours, days, months, feeling like a ghost. He’s supposed to be keeping track of everything, tells himself that he’s leading the Sora-hunt, but really everyone is more than capable of working at their assigned duties without his hanging over their shoulders.

No one _needs_ Riku, and he, somehow, doesn’t have anything to add to the rescue effort. Cid’s working with the data, Ansem the Wise and the scientists know more about hearts than Riku ever will. Donald and Goofy know Sora’s friends, and Terra, Aqua and Ven are so much better equipped to search the darkness than Riku by himself.

Mickey has duties at home. It hadn’t made sense for him to come and journey with Riku when there were so many other hands.

So Riku’s at loose ends, useless, and trying not to bother anyone too much lest he divert their attention from what’s important. Sora. They need to find Sora.

But the closest Riku gets to Sora these days is in his dreams.

They’ve been playing a game, he and dream-Sora. One where Riku hunts for him through worlds—worlds he recognizes, worlds he doesn’t—never finding him but feeling ever closer. The worlds are fleeting, ever so fleeting, but Riku can feel through them that Sora, wherever he is, is safe. 

These dreams aren’t real. Riku knows what the Sleeping Worlds feel like, knows that every world he’s visited in sleep is one that Sora, at least, knows well, even if Riku himself only has passing acquaintance. None of these worlds are sleeping, not in the way that would make these dream worlds tangible, so Riku knows that these are just dreams. Dreams without power, dreams that he can chase.

He’s told Sora before, back during the Mark of Mastery when Sora was sleeping—sleeping _again_ , always sleeping, always making Riku’s heart clench with fingers of worry that tore it to shreds—not to chase the dreams. But there are no shadowy figures in Riku’s dreams, no pulls of power, and for once he knows nearly beyond a shadow of a doubt that Xehanort and all of his incarnations are gone.

Because of Sora. 

Sora, who sometimes Riku can’t help but be furious at. Furious at for playing the hero, for abusing the Power of Waking, for throwing himself at the problem with no regard for his own safety. For thinking he could bounce back from this, too, with hardly a scratch on him. 

For leaving Riku alone again.

The image of Sora sleeping in the pod in the mansion’s basement erupts in Riku’s mind and he rubs his palms across his eyes and vows to go check in on Naminé.

Tomorrow. He'll go tomorrow… For now, Riku stares at the dark ceiling of his bedroom. Stares at it until his eyes burn—exhaustion, unshed tears, he’s so tired. Stares until his vision has been overlaid by something entirely different.

A cityscape, the pitch black darkness of a dome of sky that light pollution has stolen the stars from, replaces the murky patterns the light filtering through his drapes made on the ceiling. Riku looks around warily. Sora went to a city, a place like this, and this could just be another of those dreams with worlds Sora knew.

But something feels different.

Feels different—and _is_.

There’s a glowing red string trailing away from Riku’s left hand, looped neatly there on his smallest finger. He stares at it, then shakes his hand to flick it off. The string waves and ripples with the movement before it settles again as though nothing had disturbed it, and it’s light—weightless. Intangible, actually, like it exists on a different plane than he does.

It’s… curious. It doesn’t feel—doesn’t smell—like darkness. It feels like…

“Sora?”

Riku stares at the thread for a long, long moment. Thinks about his dreams, about chasing Sora through them, about how he always knew where Sora was, even if he hadn’t seen him.

He looks around, swivelling his head wildly as he takes in the deserted streets around him. 

Follow the thread, his heart tells him.

A lot of things have steered Riku wrong in the past, but he’s fought tooth and nail to get to a place where he can trust his heart. At least, where he can trust his heart as far as putting his faith in Sora, and somehow that’s what this feels like.

Riku chases the thread. The first two blocks he’s hopeful, by the third he’s confused. By the tenth, it feels Sisyphean. The thread isn’t getting any shorter. It trails around another bend, teases him saying “just below this underpass,” “around this corner,” “through this walled garden.” There isn’t another soul on these streets, and Riku can’t help but wonder (even as he keeps going, hope driving his loping run ever forward) if the thread leads anywhere at all. 

But he can _feel_ Sora, and he may be furious with him awake, may want to shake him and demand to know what he was thinking (and hug him and hold him and tell him _not to do it again_ ), but asleep, here, dreaming… He puts his trust in that feeling and pushes forward. 

Another ten minutes, hour, half-hour—impossible to tell, he’s dreaming and time means nothing—pass, and Riku is _tired._ Sleeping, dreaming, but still so tired. But he’s excited, too, with a kind of manic energy coursing through him telling him _this is the dream._

A ripple bounces through the thread, lifts it in a wave that washes toward Riku, and maybe he still can’t feel anything from it, but the motion had to come from somewhere—someone—Sora?—on the other end.

Hope surges through Riku, gives renewed energy to his feet and sends him in a burst of speed around the next corner. There he stops dead, relief flooding through him so sharply that it brings prickles to the corners of his eyes, sucks all the breath from his body.

Sora’s _here_. Standing awash in the circle of light cast down by a street lamp, his pallor a little thrown off by the neon sign in the window next to him. _Here_ , rotating his wrist with his pinkie extended, making the red thread—the thread that runs across the sidewalk to Riku’s hand—arc around over and over like a skipping rope. He hasn’t looked up from his game, hasn’t noticed Riku, and Riku just stands there, drinks him in.

Then he flicks his own hand, watches the ripple cascade down the thread toward Sora. Sora, who pauses, looks confused and then looks up.

“R-Riku?!”

He knows he’s dreaming, lucid dreaming, and in his dreams it should be totally okay for him to give in and run to Sora like he so desperately wants to. But he’s frozen in place and every real world hang up crashes across his shoulders—not the least of them the knowledge that Sora feels much differently about Riku than Riku does about him—leaving him standing at the corner like a deer caught in the headlights instead of responding.

Sora looks different than he did when they parted back in the Keyblade Graveyard. The changes are subtle but he looks… older, not like Riku’s memory of him, and that’s weird but maybe it’s just been so long that Riku’s frame of reference has changed. Riku supposes he probably looks a bit different, too. His hair’s been getting long again, and he hasn’t found the time—or desire, really—to do anything about it.

Apparently unfazed by Riku’s lack of reaction, Sora races over to him. “Hey!”

It’s flustering, seeing confirmation that whatever this thread on his hand is, the other end is connected to Sora. (Sora, who Riku’s had confusing feelings for since before he could identify them. Sora, who’s Riku’s best friend but who Riku can’t help but think about in deeper, more fanciful ways than _friendship_.)

It’s more flustering when Sora grabs his hand, the one with the thread, so that he can press their pinkie fingers together. The thread contracts, gets so short that it might as well not be there at all save for the loops around their fingers, when they touch. One thread, tying the two of them together. He’d thought that was the case, but the confirmation is something else entirely. 

Riku’s cheeks are hot and he prays Sora’s fascination with the red loops keeps him distracted until he can get this blush under control. 

“Hey,” he manages to get out. “We’ve been looking for you.” The words come unbidden, but he doesn’t want Sora to feel forgotten. He may be alone, wherever he is, and Riku knows that feeling of isolation all too well. He doesn’t want Sora to feel it, not if there’s anything he can do to prevent it.

Sora entwines their fingers together, and it’s awkward because it’s both of their left hands so their arms are forced between them, but Sora’s hand is warm and real in his and maybe he’s really worlds away, so far out of Riku’s reach, but until he wakes up, he’ll take this.

“I’m okay,” Sora says, and smiles. He doesn’t look okay. The smile is bittersweet, like he’s trying to be strong for Riku’s sake, and Riku isn’t sure when Sora learned that one—maybe he’d missed it. He’s probably missed a lot. Sora’s adventures always take him so far out of reach.

“Where are you? We’ve looked everywhere.”

Sora tilts his head back, looks confused. “What d’you mean? I’m right here.” His smile turns reassuring. “You found me.”

Then he laughs and looks sheepish. “I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble.” He looks down at their hands, eases his fingers from Riku’s. Riku lets him go quickly, finding he’s been clinging to Sora’s hand more tightly than he realized. But Sora just wags his finger, sending ripples through the thread again. “But I know you’re always close by, Riku.”

Riku reaches for the thread, but it dances away when his fingers get close. “What _is_ this thing?” he asks, instead of trying to address that statement. 

Sora lets his attention be diverted. “Well…” He pauses, hums in thought. “Hearts are all connected, right?” He entwines his fingers and braces his hands on the back of his head, elbows framing his face. “Maybe for you and me, in this world, it shows up like this!”

“ _Just_ for us?” Riku asks, and his cheeks flare red.

 _It’s a dream. It’s a dream._ He tells himself to try and will the blush away. He sticks his hands in his pockets so it’s not so obvious that he’s clenching and unclenching his hands. 

He’s caught Sora off guard. He stares back at Riku with that same deer in the headlights look Riku had been struck by before.

Then he blushes, too, and Riku’s in good company.

“Is that okay?” Sora asks.

_It’s a—_

Riku cracks, his mind breaking the continued litany at the hesitation in Sora’s voice. It’s a dream. So what?

“It’s just…” Sora trails off and looks around. “Sometimes I think I’m the only person in this whole world. But now you’re here, like the thread brought you here, and I wanted you to be here. You, not Kairi or Donald or Goofy, and _you’re here._ And—— Mmf! Riku!”

His name comes muffled against Riku’s shirt, and Riku squeezes his arms around Sora and presses him closer, because Riku’s heart can’t take Sora’s lonely ramble anymore. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m always going to be here, Sora. You know that.” 

Sora’s arms wrap around his waist and they cling to each other, standing there on that lonely street corner. Riku rests his cheek on the top of Sora’s head, and Sora rests his against Riku’s chest, where Riku can feel his warm exhales slowing down as he relaxes.

“I have to go again,” Riku says, quietly, when he notices that the sky is starting to lighten. The edges of the world are going blurry, not quite in focus, like he’s waking up. 

Sora looks up, and his eyes are half-lidded like he’s starting to fall asleep. “Huh?” He blinks, awake once again when he registers Riku’s words. “Why?”

“This is a dream,” Riku says, as much for Sora as himself. “I can’t stay.”

“A dream?” Sora asks. “You mean like a sleeping world?”

Riku shakes his head. “No, like _I’m_ dreaming.” He pulls back just a little, immediately misses the warmth of Sora pressed right up against him. “And it’s almost morning. I’ve gotta go.”

Sora’s brow furrows. “Huh?”

Riku eases away from them, lets Sora go. The thread stretches between them again, just as solid as before. He lifts his hand to make it ripple. “I’m here, remember?”

He casts a look around the world, tries to memorize this spot, even as the very city seems to be lightening and fading away into the ever increasing paleness of the sky. It’s a little pink, to the east, like a beautiful sunrise is being obscured by all of the towering buildings. If he can find this world in real life, maybe he can find Sora here. 

“I know but…” Sora bows his head and curls his hand into a fist so the thread trails out between his fingers. 

“Hey,” Riku says. He bends down, gets into Sora’s line of sight, and nudges his chin back up with his finger. Sora’s still so solid, even if the city isn’t. “It’s not going to be for long, okay?” He’d found Sora in his dreams once, it should be easy enough to do it again.

“Okay,” Sora says. He leaps forward, wraps his arms around Riku’s shoulders and pulls him down. “You’ve gotta make me a promise, okay?” His tone has gone joking, so Riku doesn’t pledge _Anything_ like he wants to.

“Yeah? What’s that?” 

“Cut your hair before I come back!”

Riku’s hand flies up to the back of his hair, tugs at the grown out strands. “Uh, okay. Sure.”

He’s still caught in Sora’s hug, loath to leave it even though being bent this far over is uncomfortable. “Good. And… one more thing,” Sora says, right near his ear. 

“Yeah?”

Sora presses a kiss to his cheek, and Riku’s brain short circuits. All he can see are bursts of light, and he can’t tell if it’s the dream imploding around him or his brain exploding from the contact.

“I-I—”

He’s closed his eyes, and when he opens them again, his arms are wrapped around a pillow, his blanket on the floor, and his bedroom ceiling is above him, not an endless black sky.

“…am awake.”

He tries to grasp onto the end of the dream, but even seconds later it’s hard for him to remember anything but Sora’s presence. The city. And, maybe, dimly, vaguely, that Sora’s lips were just as warm as he was.

He groans and rolls over. Maybe he can get another hour of sleep. 

He cuts his hair before he goes to visit Naminé. It’s getting long and unmanageable, and besides he’s been meaning to do it for a while. Then he runs an errand to Radiant Garden. 

The little data Sora in the computer is weird, even if getting to play against the Organization data and fight them without any real consequences is fun.

And then the Fairy Godmother shows up. And somehow, she knows. Knows that Riku’s been having dreams about Sora. 

_“Tell me about the dreams you’ve been having.”_

He skips over the interaction with Sora, too mortified to tell everyone in the Radiant Garden Restoration Committee that dream Sora had kissed him, and instead focuses on the parts that were the same as the other dreams. Looking for Sora. Always looking for Sora. 

_“Riku may be the key… I’m sure there’s something there that leads to Sora.”_

The red thread flashes in his vision, and he’s confused and fighting not to show it. It had been a dream…

Hadn’t it?


End file.
